If' is the Middle Word in 'Life'
by Retrolex
Summary: A Neutral journalist steals aviation fuel, channels Dennis Hopper, and plots bloody vengeance, in that order. And makes a sweet landing while he's at it. OC-based, and really frickin' random.


Most of the time, he just steals what he needs.

And it's easy, man, so easy. Most small airports have a fence, but that only keeps vandals out. There are rarely any security guards about. Sometimes the fuel pumps are unlocked. A little Jet-A, a little 100LL - it's all the same to him. He siphons what he needs in the dead of night, and in the morning some poor kid gets to make the discovery that the reading on one of the tanks isn't adding up, that it's showing they're eight thousand pounds short. And that is not his problem, Jack.

He's cagey, though. He never steals from the same airport twice in a row. Hell, with his wings he doesn't even need to steal from the same country twice in a row. One night he'll drain a tank in Connecticut, and a week later an operator in Indonesia with a god awful little gravel strip that drops clear off a mountain side realises they're missing four barrels of fuel.

And he pays them. He pays them, sure. In valuable life lessons. Lock up your fuel, man. Otherwise robots are gonna be getting in it. Now you know better.

Mostly he steals just because it gives him an excuse to travel, to stretch his wings. See the world, commit a little larceny. Because he loves to travel. And shit man, he loves this planet, right down to his evil black core.

He has always had a talent for blending in. That is his real skill, his passion. He absorbs culture like sunlight and breathes language. Thanks to his holomatter projector he can disguise himself as whoever or whatever he wants. He's a Cuban man in a pub in Fitzroy, watching the aboriginals talk. He's an Austrian backpacker riding the side of an old diesel train in Thailand, heading north into Laos. He's a Nigerian hiking the limestone valleys of Wulong Karst, a little old Spanish woman watching the galaxy bloom across the night sky over the Indian Ocean. He's an American dancing with the ladies in Rio. Hell man, once he was a potcake dog, tan and curly tailed, running wild on the streets in the Bahamas.

After that incident Ace had asked him, Primus, I get all the other avatars, but why the hell did you want to be a dog? They're dirty. Deuce had just waved his hands in the air and said, dialectic logic, man. Do or do not. Be or be not. One through nine, no maybes, no supposes, no fractions. You can't travel in space, you can't go out into space, you know, without, like, you know, uh, with fractions, okay? What are you going to land on – one-quarter, three-eighths? What are you going to do when you go from here to Venus or something? That's dialectic physics, man. Ace had just stared at him and then demanded to know if he was high.

Ace is kind of an a-hole sometimes.

Of all the people he has been though, his favourite is the photojournalist, the grizzled Californian with the salt and pepper stubble and flyaway hair and the wild eyes. Part of it is the attire - the patched up vintage shirts, the scarves, the knotted bandana, that dirty old green sidebag and the jangled mess of beaded necklaces and sunglasses slung around his neck, along with those two big Nikon F's. And the rest is the theatrics - he rants and laughs and makes manic gestures, and quotes Eliot, and everywhere around the world those who get the joke laugh and tell him to give the Colonel their regards, and those who don't ask him to take their picture. And shit man, he loves taking their pictures, so that is okay with him.

Yeah. He likes the photojournalist. Warrior-poet, man. Taking snapshots of life. Feels right.

But sometimes, you've just gotta be real. You know? Be yourself.

So right now he is being himself.

Right now he is a fighter jet on a ten mile final into Minden-Tahoe.

Good old KMEV. Because while most of the time he just steals what he needs, sometimes he gets cocky and likes to walk right in and take it. As himself. Just because he knows he can get away with it.

He has a system.

Minden-Tahoe is perfect for this kind of brazen fuel theft. It is uncontrolled, unicom, with a nice smooth five-thousand foot runway. Some trees on the approach end of runway 12, but nothing he can't handle. He doesn't know if it has an instrument approach or not, but hell man, he doesn't need to go IFR. He's a damn robot from space, he can set his wheels down in zero vis with his eyes literally closed.

And best of all, it has Jet-A. Aw yeah. He can process the low-lead stuff, but there is little doubt in his mind that his engines, both Earthen and Cybertronian, run better with kerosene in his lines. One night he had taken off from a little strip high up in the Rockies after helping himself to some low-lead, and had flamed out four hundred feet into the climbout. That had been a bad night for him.

The wind whistles in his audials and buffets his nose. He checks his airspeed. Shit, still over three hundred knots. Too fast. He pulls back on his throttle and mutters to himself, slow down, you idiot, what the hell, you've done this landing hundreds of times before. Don't botch it in front of the humans, how embarrassing would that be.

Get it together. Minden-Tahoe. What's the frequency, Kenneth?

Ah, right. He hums and cycles his radio. He's on 123.05 now and calls out final. Some little 152 is doing circuits on runway 34. The pilot hears him and politely offers to extend his downwind to accommodate him. Sweet. Thanks, man, you're ace. Not that Ace though, he is a big red jackass.

He sobers. Gets focused. His mind is racing ten minutes ahead of him now. In it he has already touched down and taxied to the pumps, and the ruse is underway. Always think ahead, man. Never go anywhere your mind hasn't already taken you. That is how you fly, and that is how you survive.

The landing procedure starts to come together. It goes a little like this:

Below three hundred knots, and it's gear down. Three green lights and locked. Flaps come down with the gear. Get some power off, time to slow to one-sixty knots. Fuel flow is twenty-three hundred pounds per hour, about eighty-four percent on the RPM gauge. Airspeed is falling nicely and he's on the glide path. Brilliant.

The runway is in sight. Sock says a light crosswind is blowing across the asphalt, but a lowered wing and a touch of rudder eliminates the drift. Keep on that centre line, man.

The threshold is three degrees down the HUD now. Time to extend his speed brakes and whoa, the drag pulls on his wings and he can feel his airspeed sag. He lowers his nose slightly and inches back his power. Flight path marker is back at the top of the bracket, but he is a flier and can feel in his frame that he's on the right approach. Feels good.

He's floating over the threshold, a hundred feet over the numbers and it's time to flare. Nose up gently, hold it, throttle to idle and let the lift peel off your wings. Airspeed is down to one-thirty knots now and he can feel himself settling to earth. His main tires chirp a moment later and he's down and roaring along the runway, his nosewheel lowering only when he slows further. Somewhere in his mind he is throwing up the horns. Aw hell yeah, that was a greaser, man. How about that, humans? I'm a F-16 Falcon, bitches. Yeah, you Mooney holding short on Charlie, did you see that landing? I know you were watching. That was perfection, baby.

By the time he has rolled out and cleared on the Alfa-One taxiway he has calmed down and is thinking clearly again. His neural net pulls up a chart of the airport. Pumps are over by the terminal. His holomatter avatar is firmly in place as he taxis over to the main apron. He is tempted to pop his canopy and wave loftily to the Cessna doing a run-up over by Bravo, but even his ego balks at such a display. You are a professional space robot, Deuce. Act like a professional. Holy shit. Check out that cute blonde chick climbing out of the Cherokee. Wave to her, idiot!

Sure enough, an excited crowd is already milling by the Jet-A pumps. He laughs. It looks as if every pilot on the field who is not out flying has found an excuse to come over and gawk. God, he loves his fellow fliers. They know hot stuff when they see it.

Zap em' with your sirens, man, he thinks to himself. Zap em' with your sirens!

He shuts down at the pumps and his avatar climbs down from the cockpit. He likes this avatar. It is brown-haired and rather plain in appearance, save for the flight suit. But it has a friendly, open face and it leans its arm against the fuselage of its jet and chats amiably with the crowd as fuel is pumped. Answers questions like a good representative of the American Air Force. They're always the same questions too: what airspeed do you cruise at? What's the fuel burn like? Where are the guns? The kids like to ask him that one. They also like to put their grubby mitts all over his paint job, which he is not so keen about.

After twenty minutes the fuel jockey pulls back the hose and grounding lines and presents him with a billing slip. He signs it off with a smile and the signature 'R.O. Shipman', because that always makes him laugh long and hard on the inside.

And he knows he can't get away with this, not forever. Sooner or later some official is going to check his tail number and realise it does not match up with any known American military aircraft. Or else they will take a closer look at one of those fuel purchases he is so innocently billing to the air force and it will hit them that R.O. Shipman is not only a chaplain, but not actually a real person. He is going to get caught one day. It is going to happen. And it will all be a part of his plan. Because he always has a plan. He's got plans for you, Autobots and Decepticons of Earth. He is clear in his mind but his soul is mad.

This plan is a killer.

Leaving is easier than landing, and a lot faster too, since he knows better than to linger at the scene of a crime. He's splitting, Jack. He rolls once on climbout, because he can't resist. Chortles to himself as he imagines the pilots left weeping in his wake turbulence. Why won't my aircraft climb at three thousand feet a minute, they cry. Why, god.

Only when he is safely at forty-thousand feet does he level off and relax. Ahh. It's all horizon up here, deep blue sky and crispy white cirrus clouds. He is full of fuel. It races through his lines, liquid energy and life.

He hums contentedly and listens to radio chatter and plots vengeance.

Sometimes he goes too far, you know. He's the first one to admit it.

* * *

___Wow, that was pretty damn random. Deuce and Ace are old OCs of mine, a pair of Neutral journalists. Deuce has a sweet avatar. I love that movie, man._


End file.
